From what I've gleaned about wireless encryption, TKIP should NOT be used with Linux because of the problems it causes. I would suggest, if you have access to the router, changing your cypher to CCMP only.

I see your running Mint 18.0 Sarah (not 18.1 Serena). The Kernel 4.4.0-21 is pretty old and has a lot of patches up to the current 4.4.0-101 Kernel (current fix level for that old Kernel).

You might want to try updating the Kernel level as a start from Update Manager as a test. If you want to stay with 4.4, that's OK. Just getting to the current fixed level should give some elimination of bugs from the past 18-24 months of updates as the cause of the freezes.

Hi ClixTrix,
thank you for your quick reply.
well, the only reason I used the "older" version was that I had a DVD of it and knew it's long term supported.
The system freezes without any previous symptoms. the system freezes and not even REISUB has any effect.
No matter what I'm doing...Gimp/Inkscape/web browsing...
I need to read into the "bay trail" options.
I'm happy to change the OS/version if the notebook stops freezing.
Are there Mint versions supporting bay trail? What would you suggest?
I'm lost right now.

Linux Mint is based upon Ubuntu and generally follows the releases of their LTS versions every two years, e.g. Mint 18 tracks with the release of Ubuntu 16.04 and each supplemental update at about 6 month intervals. The recent release of Mint 18.3 follows the the Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS released last July with Kernel 4.10 and is the last release of Mint 18. Ubuntu will release 18.04 next April and Mint will release 19.0 around June 2018.

From my checks the Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety Yak (from that article on Bay Trail) came with Kernel 4.8. That's also the Kernel that came with Mint 16.2 released last June and was probably also used in one of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS cycle updates.